I have a book list to finish reading before taking my Political Analysis Comprehensive Exam this May. Interpreting NAFTA is the first book I finished and is such a fascinating one. This book not only tells vivid stories behind the negotiation of NAFTA, it also provides a multilevel framework we could use to analyze the political decisions. For those we have read this book, I hope you enjoyed it as much as I do.
Frederick W. Mayer, Interpreting NAFTA: The Science and Art of Political Analysis, New York: Columbia University Press, 1998.
Ch1 Introduction
1.Goals of the book:
- To understand the history of NAFTA, specifically:
- Why did the US/Canada/Mexico decide to negotiate?
- Why did the agreements take the form that they did?
- Why was ratification so fiercely contested in the US?
- To evaluate existing political theory in light of the NAFTA case.
- Brief Introduction of NAFTA
In February of 1990, Mexico (President Salinas) asked the U.S. to consider a bilateral trade agreement, to which the U.S. (President George Bush) agreed. Canada (Prime Minister Mulroney) was not initially interested in participating (they had completed a Canada-U.S. bilateral agreement in 1987 with substantial political costs), but later changed its mind. Negotiations formally began in 1991, lasting until August of 1992 – which meant that the U.S. presidential election campaigns were under way. Candidate Clinton came out in favor of NAFTA, but conditionally on strong environmental and labor side agreements (Bush had already made some concessions to these groups, but they had more leverage with Clinton both because of the election and because he was a democrat). NAFTA was passed in the U.S. in November of 1993 following a major political battle.
Ch2 A Framework for Political Analysis (most important chapter)
Understanding the history of NAFTA (including why it took the specific form that it did) requires the use of multiple modes/theories and levels of analysis. Different theories and levels are more important at different stages of the process, but we cannot fully explain the observed outcomes without drawing from (usually competing) models of rational choice, institutional process, and symbolic politics – often nested at the international, domestic, and individual levels.
Based on his findings, Mayer argues against the idea that one or another theory or mode of analysis is dominant or most important, and that using them synergistically is the best approach for political analysis in many cases.
| Level of Analysis | Mode of Politics | ||
| Rational Choice
“Interests” |
Institutional Process
“Institutions” |
Symbolic Response
“Ideas” |
|
| International | Realism | Regime Theory | Epistemic Communities |
| Domestic | Political Economy | Organizational Behavior | Cultural Anthropology |
| Individual | Public Choice & Institutional Economics | Cognitive Psychology | Constructivism, Symbolic Interactionism |
Dimensions of the Analytic Framework
International Level
Focuses on processes in the international arena (politics among states). The dominant theories in International Relations concentrate on this level (states as unitary actors).
Domestic Level
Analyzes international relations as the consequence of domestic politics. “National behavior is determined by the action and interaction of bureaucracies and legislatures, political parties, business, and union lobbies, and other advocacy groups.” (p. 15)
Individual Actors
Focuses on elite actions and the particular worldviews of individuals. This may include theories that concentrate on elite decision-making or the individual interaction within groups.
Modes of Politics (assumptions about the fundamental nature of political behavior and political processes)
Rational Choice
Assumes the behavior of actors in the system is determined by rational choice. Two types of rational choice: substantively rational (seek to maximize the same set of core interests) and procedural rationality (strategically rational). This approach seeks to predict how individual choices will aggregate into collective action. Consider the example of NAFTA.
Institutional Process
The behavior of actors is determined by preexisting institutions. “In this concept of politics, rule, norms, routines, and other institutions limit options for action and at least partially predetermine their selection, thus channeling behavior along established paths. Political behavior is less a choice than an execution of programs” (p. 19).
Symbolic Response
Political behavior is a response to the way in which political circumstances are symbolically constructed. People respond to and interpret symbols. The emphasis is on ideas, symbolic representations, and their competing influences. “The essence of politics, therefore, is a contest among competing constructions.” (p. 20).
Section 1 Deciding to Negotiate
Ch3 Why a North American Free Trade Agreement?
Background: In early February 1990, Mexican President Carlos Salinas de Gortari decided to ask the United States to negotiate a free trade agreement with Mexico. US President George Bush agreed and Canadian Prime Minister Brian Mulroney decided it like a seat at the negotiating table. In January 1991, the three countries finally agree to negotiate.
Apply the framework with why NAFTA:
International Level:
Neo-realism (international level rational choice theory) assumes (1) states have clear interests, primarily in security; (2) states are rational actors; (3) the international system is anarchic, so that international outcomes are determined solely by the balance of power and the strategic interplay among states.
In this case, neo-realism could be used to explain why NAFTA was in the economic interest of all three countries (benefits of free trade), but it can’t explain the timing of the decision to negotiate, or why the road to an agreement mutually beneficial to all three states would be so long and uncertain.
International Regime Theory argues that international institutions matter and that internationally held rules, norms, and organizations affect the choices that nations make. Most International Regime Theory assumes a moderately weak system of international institutions in which countries are rational actors but occasionally bounded by international regimes (much like a repeated Prisoner’s Dilemma game). Regimes can facilitate mutually advantageous cooperation under the right circumstances. This theory helps explain (1) that the three countries were creating a new regime by negotiating, (2) the timing of NAFTA was influenced by Mexico’s entering into new international regimes by having to obtain IMF stabilization loans in the 1980s and, therefore, open its economy along mandated lines; (3) the importance of free trade agreements, which are the regimes of choice in the 1980s and 1990s for increasing cooperation. Neither neo-realism or regime theory can explain the exact timing of the decision to negotiate.
International Symbolic Politics maintains that ideas, ideologies, and worldviews affect the behavior of nations, independent of interests and institutions. This includes various notions including (1) that ideas are potential solutions to collective action problems, (2) symbolic systems establish beliefs about cause and effect (e.g. what we believe is the outcome of trade), (3) ideas frame issues to make some dimension more important than another (e.g. free trade vs. human rights), and (4) ideas and symbols help construct a sense of national interest. This helps to explain Mexico’s decision to seek a free-trade agreement – it was a symbolic step signaling a changed Mexico to an international audience, and a signal to international investors.
Domestic Level:
While much of the decision to negotiate can be explained at the international level, we must turn to the domestic level to understand the key question of why countries must negotiate something that it is in their economic interest to do unilaterally. In fact, the need to negotiate an international agreement can be explained by the need to overcome a domestic collective action problem in international trade. International agreements serve as vehicles for solving domestic political problems by tying the hands of domestic interests. Mexico in particular used NAFTA as a way of committing domestic interests to free market policies.
Individual Level:
There is decision-making by elites. This is a story about the relationship among the three heads of state. Bush was a Texan, comfortable with Mexico and a free trader; Salinas has a graduate degree from the US and was much bolder than his predecessor in liberalizing the economy; Brian Mulroney, a pro-trade Conservative prime minister who at the time of the decision-to-negotiate was in a politically secure position despite the unpopularity of CAFTA a few years before (he was no longer PM when the agreement was signed).
Ch2 Domestic Politics Matter: The Fast Track Fight
Background: For Mexico and Canada, once Salinas and Mulroney committed to NAFTA, the decision was made. But for the United States, Bush would need to obtain “fast track” negotiating authority from Congress. “Fast track” is the standard process by which Congress delegates authority to the president to negotiate on its behalf and commits itself to both to limited debate and to an up-down vote. The 1988 Trade Act had authorized the fast track for three years, Bush need to ask for the extension by March 1991. Organizations concerned about the workers rights, environment, food safety, family farmers and other issues raised oppositions. In May 1991, Congress granted the president tow years of negotiating authority while Bush had to address the labor and environment issues in the negotiation.
Apply the framework with why Fast Track:
Domestic Level:
Domestic Rational Choice: Interest groups understood the quite well on the effects of Fast Track and correctly anticipated the likely outcome of the extensions. So their fight over the institution of fast track can be viewed as a rational choice process among competing domestic interests. Three interest groups: supporters, especially business groups fought hard for it; opponents, like unions, some grassroots environmental organizations and highly protected sectors; opportunities, mainstream environmental organizations, gain leverage to advance issues of concern to them. The features of the politics of fast track extension can be regarded as a bargain between two players – business and mainstream environment. By linking the fast track extension issues with the environmental extension problems, environmental groups made Bush administration make a modest side payment in exchange for support as a result of such bargain. The payment is in the form of the Action Plan, a promise to address the border issues, to discuss greater cooperation with Mexico on environmental issues, and put environmentalists on the trade advisory committees.
Domestic Institutions: the choice of rules in one period must be made according to rules established at an earlier period. The congressional decision about Fast Track in 1991 was based on rules laid down in 1988. In the Omnibus Trade and Competitiveness Act, Congress granted the president three years of fast track negotiating authority, and allowed for an extension of two more years. The 1988 process was itself structured by institutions decided upon earlier, most notably in 1974 when the fast track process was invented for the Tokyo Round of the GATT negotiations.
Section II International Negotiation
Ch5 Two-Level Bargaining: The NAFTA Negotiation
Background:
President Salinas, President Bush and Prime Minister Mulroney hoped to conclude the negotiation by the end of 1991 or early 1992, before the US presidential campaign heated up. But the not until August 12, 1992, did the negotiators finally reach agreement and a new Congress and a new president would decide what to do with it. The NAFTA agreements all three countries to eliminate most barriers to trade goods and services; to open investment in most sectors of the economy and to adhere to new rules for intellectual property, government procurement, and dispute settlement (p110). However, a few politically privileged industries in all three countries were exempted, e.g. Mexican oil, Canadian culture industries, and US shipping. Only narrow class of professionals and businesspersons were free to work across national borders.
Two Stage Analytical Framework: the auto rule of origin
Much of the NAFTA negotiation focused on the rules of origin that established how much of a good needed to be made in North America for it to be considered “North American”, thus qualifying for preferential tariff treatment (P155). After long and tough bargaining, the negotiators finally settled on 62.5 percent. Such number is a result of both international-level bargain and domestic-level bargain among strong interests groups. For instance, in the US domestic level, the three automakers-GM, Ford, and Chrysler- interested in high rule of origin to make it more difficult for European and Japanese competitors to locate assembly plants in Canada or Mexico and therefore ship autoparts to US duty free. Based on their own patterns of production and competitive position, each of them sets a different threshold.
(P156.P158)
Ch6 Making Side Issues Central: The Labor and Environment Negotiations
Background: With Bill Clinton’s election in November, the side issues-environment and labor became central since Clinton tried to gain Democratic supporters during the campaign. In May of 1993, Clinton administration tabled its first position that satisfies enough Democrats sympathetic to labor and environmental interests to win Congressional approval, but it was rejected by Mexico and Canada. The negotiation also failed by summer’s end of 1993 when the vast majority of Democrats in Congress were ready to oppose the agreement. Negotiators for all three countries found ways to make compromises and finally reached an agreement on August 13,1993.
Three Stage Analytical Framework: the environment negotiation
The thoughness, “teeth”, of the enforcement mechanism for environmental issues is measured from “gum” to “fangs”. At international level, Mexico preferred no enforcement; Canada preferred some enforcement and the United States had a preference for sharp teeth. The US preference on international level reflects the domestic level bargain between business and mainstream environmental groups. The presidential election between Bush and Clinton changed the domestic game in the U.S. in a way which gave more power to unions and environmentalists, forcing the negotiation of labor and environmental side-agreements with “teeth.” Mainstream environment’s preferences at the domestic level reflect the individual-level bargain between members and staff. Mainstream environmentalist leadership did not originally insist on sanction-enforcement for the environmental side-agreement, but their position changed in part because of the way the issue was framed to the public – which influenced their membership and therefore constrained their actions.
Section 3 The Politics of Ratification
Ch7 Symbolic Politics: Growing Grassroots Opposition
Background: In the fall of 1993, NAFTA faced remarkable breadth of opposition in the United States.
Symbolic politics played against NAFTA on a domestic level in all three countries. Canadian and Mexican fears about losing their identity were particularly strong, although US opinion also soon became highly charged against NAFTA. In the US, the citizens’ participation in opposing NAFTA can be explained by that ideological consumption of individuals overcame the logic of collective action. Individuals received satisfaction from the act of joining, writing, or attending because some form of ideological consumption(p260). But why would they join the opposite acts? The symbolic politics is powerful when the costs of information acquisition and processing are high and the potential benefits of using symbols to reinforce identities or worldviews are also high(p272). So as apprehended by union members, grassroots environmentalists, and so on, NAFTA became the story of corrupt politicians and greedy corporation. Opposition to NAFTA was a matter of honor, a matter of moral imperative and an affirmation of identity(p272).
Ch8 Diagnosis and Strategy
Background: NAFTA supporters won the battle.
To diagnose NAFTA’s problem and revise strategy, what is needed is a framework that allows us to assess the nature of Congressional institutions, interest group politics, and symbolic constructions in the broader public; understand the complex interrelationships among them; the most importantly, identify the possible points of leverage in this system (p334).
BIOTRACYPHY 